Serra: "The second round is extremely risky"

247 - Former governor José Serra opened up to journalist Fernando Rodrigues. In a lengthy interview, he spoke about his presidential ambitions, but said he could still support Aécio Neves from Minas Gerais if there is unity within the PSDB party. Clearly, therefore, he is working towards internal division and will work until the last minute to have another chance to run for president. According to him, there is a clear "desire for change." Check out some excerpts below and read here The full text:

Regarding the Libra auction

She [President Dilma] took a long time, and during that period, Brazil accumulated an oil deficit, with Petrobras in a very difficult situation. Secondly, even within the profit-sharing model, things were poorly managed. So much so that there was no auction. There was no auction because there was only one competitor. And clearly, there was a cartel formed beforehand, because nobody else was going to participate. So the government started working to create a cartel, to form a group that would exploit the oil.

Dilma as manager

Yes, I believe that the main virtue of the government is not its management skills. If you were to ask me, "What is the main flaw of Dilma's government?", I would say: weak management. Secondly, maintaining the methods of patronage, politicization of the State, etc.

The June protests

What happened in the streets is very difficult to determine, to give a one-sided explanation—this caused that, etc.—but there's some aspect to it, some aspect of dissatisfaction with this kind of publicity. Big announcements that lead to nothing. If you look at Dilma's government approval ratings today compared to the level of exposure she gets in the free media and the official media, which now includes national networks that are being used abusively, there's a big difference between the intensity and the actual results. That's why I think they might lose the election.

The PSDB presidential candidacy

Look, the PSDB, by agreement, was supposed to decide this later. In March, starting in March of next year. And I have been somewhat following this decision that was made at some point. And then we'll see what the situation is, and what I will always do is: align myself with the perspective of strengthening the opposition so that it can be an alternative power in Brazil. What I do will be subordinate to this criterion. And I will do it, let's say, within the PSDB.

End of the "Lulist cycle"

Here's the thing: when Dilma took office, a cycle had come to an end. The Lula-era development cycle. What was Lula's development? A positive, modest growth rate of 3% per year, nothing extraordinary, driven by consumption, with a large opening of imports of consumer goods competing with domestic industry, deindustrialization—we returned to the level of industry we had after World War II—that's the share of industry in GDP—an overvalued exchange rate, right? Which made all of this viable. Including foreign tourism. Brazil has a R$15 billion deficit. In other words, it was a model that profited from the external boom. Brazil has never had an equal boom. International interest rates were rock bottom and our prices were sky-high. Well, Brazilian prices for agricultural minerals have already stabilized. There won't be any spike. The cost of money, it's known, won't be so cheap abroad in the coming years; consumer credit has been running out. In some way, this model has completed its stage. What needed to be done from there? You had to take the infrastructure investments and transform those investments into a lever for economic growth on the demand side, that is, you would employ people, you would buy machines, etc., and on the supply side, you would improve the productivity of the economy.

A purebred ticket in the PSDB.
Look, we haven't even finalized any candidate yet, imagine choosing a vice-presidential candidate at this point. Especially deciding that the vice-presidential candidate is from the PSDB party, a pure PSDB ticket, without having the alliance already defined. That seems very premature.

Tucano Union

It is my great aspiration that the PSDB be united, regardless of who the candidate is. And I will work towards that, make no mistake.

Support for Aécio
I will, I will, I will work to ensure that there is unity, first. And second, once there is unity, that this unity is projected onto the campaign, without a doubt.

Possible sabotage by Aécio in 2010 

To make it perfectly clear, I didn't lose the election because I could have gotten more votes in Minas Gerais. If you look at the election results, you'll see that's not the explanation. The defeat in 2010 was because everything was growing by 10% – wages, consumer credit, a period of euphoria, with Lula's government riding high in the approval ratings. So, really, looking back, it seems quite an achievement to have gotten 43 or 44% of the vote. It wasn't because people worked more or less in this or that region.

Support from miners in 2010

In my view, they helped. I even remember that in the second round we ran a very intense campaign in Belo Horizonte, where I even won the election. Now, after the election, it's always very subjective. Some people think one way, some people think the opposite. But what I want to say is that there wasn't really a decisive factor in what happened.

Dilma's assessment

If you look at polls—and we know polls today have a very relative value—but when you look at the polls involving the current president, Dilma, whether strictly electoral or government evaluations, you see that her performance is low considering her level of exposure and the number of positive events announced, like the Libra scandal, and so on, where she made a jumble of numbers. She gave the impression that a trillion [reais] was just around the corner. People are seeing this, they lack information, and many tend to believe it. Even so, her performance is modest. And it's stuck there. If you look at polls from different institutes, she has around 37, 38, 40% approval. For someone in office, for someone with the exposure she has, I think that's low. When you look at government evaluations, I've seen polls—I'm not saying the most accurate ones—but approval/disapproval ratings generally don't show a big difference. And you see, it's different from "great" and "good." "Great" and "good" are one thing. In general, approval is higher than... when I was governor of São Paulo, I had 55, 57% "great" and "good" and 70% and some approval. Approved/disapproved, it's easier to have a high approval rating. It's rare. I mean, there are many restrictions. And above all, Fernando, you take any poll, from any institute, and there it is: "desire for change," for change to happen.

Possible return of Lula

I think so. I think the PT doesn't want to lose power at all. No party wants to. But for the PT it's very special. You know why? Because they've become intertwined with power. The PT seized control of the government and left a part for its allies. But the entire machine today is intertwined with the government. For them, it's a matter of survival.

Risk of a second round
It creates a lot of uncertainty. A second round for her is extremely risky.